


Changed...Only in dreams

by Krazy_n_Nerdy



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krazy_n_Nerdy/pseuds/Krazy_n_Nerdy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because lies can only stay hidden for so long...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is in response to this last Flarrow crossover! My heart breaks for my girl and the hurt that will result from the choice Oliver made. I can't even...

The first thing he noticed when he walked into the loft was the stillness that existed, the second was the minimal light reflected from the fire and the living rooms lights that were set on dim. The feeling of dread that had been hanging around him since last night when his world fell apart and wanted to take over intensified settling perfectly in his chest. 

"Felicity?" He called out hoping to be correct yet feeling silly at the amount of hope that could be heard in his voice. She didn't call back to him but the door to their room opened and he heard her heels clicking against the floor as she got to the stairs. He knew he should say something, anything to make her stop and listen to him, to hear him out but seeing her with a suitcase froze him. Anxiousness grew in his chest and as much as he wanted to open his mouth and say the magic words that could fix this he couldn't, his mouth opened and closed and nothing came out because whatever the words were he didn't know them. And as he stood frozen in front of the couch watching her climb the stair he realized how bad this really was, how terrible the situation must be when she couldn't even glance his way. 

She had heard his voice call out for her and it just made the pain in her chest grow because she wasn't prepared for his. She had hoped she could escape in the late of the night before he returned, the last thing she wanted was to face him but luck wasn't on her side; it never was it would seem. She hung on to her bag and took extra effort in going down the stairs with her suitcase, never making eye contact with him because although she would have to face him before leaving she'd be damned if she wouldn't prolong it for as long as necessary. Every moment mattered now and she needed all the extra moments to get herself together before she buried her heart and said goodbye to her dreams and the life that was everything she wished for. 

Reaching the bottom of the stairs she left her suitcase by the doorway ready for her departure before she turned to him because she was out of time, she'd been living on borrowed time with him it seemed and now it was finally time to admit it. So with one last deep breath, the last one she allowed herself before she turned to face him, she armed herself with walls and used them as her last armor.

Seeing her place her suitcase by the door just made his heart beat faster in despair. He felt his once close friend named hopelessness try to invade his being but still he clung to the little bit of light that still wasn't dimmed within himself. 

"What's that for Felicity?" He asked pointing at the luggage. 

"It's my suitcase, I think it's pretty self explanatory Oliver. "

"You can't leave me! We're engaged! We can fix this! Please let me fix this! Please!" His voiced begged her, the pain and fear ringing clear but he didn't care about his pride just then, he cared about her and not losing her. 

Her laughter rang in the cold loft, laughter that usually made him feel warm and produced an automatic smile from him now made him instead feel the chill in the air and the distance that laid between them. Her usual laughter was replaced by something bitter and cold and broken and something so far from his Felicity that it made it hurt all the more.

She couldn't help it, the bitter laugh escaped her lips before she could school her emotions, his words were a joke; the cruelest of jokes. "There's nothing to fix here anymore. Your proposal was a joke, a big cruel joke at my expense but a joke in the end! How did you think this would play out Oliver? How could it end in anything but this right here, right now?!" Her chest was heaving and the tears that rolled down her face burned, she knew she was showing weakness by showing any emotion but her anger was real and it was the of only thing that was keeping her heartbreak at bay. She could break down and crumble once out that door but not just yet.

He was stunned, how could she think his proposal was a joke? He knew he messed up but he was sure she would know that his love was true, she had always seen through him before and he had been counting on that even now. "How could you possibly ever think that I would joke about a life together with you? I meant everything I said Felicity! I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you!"

"You don't love me Oliver because love means trust! I've loved you with my whole heart and that means I've trusted you with everything I have. I believed in you and I foolishly allowed myself to believe in us even with events from our past showed that wasn't my wisest choice. I chose you but you've never chosen me back have you Oliver?"

"It's not that simple! He's my son! How am I supposed to choose between my son and the love of my life?!"

"That's not what I meant and you know it! I would never begrudge you a relationship with your child! That you think I would tells me how little you truly think of me!"

"No that's not what I meant-"

"Isn't it? You said you couldn't tell me because she made the rules but you had plenty of occasions when you could have told me and how would she have known?! I would've kept your secret and sure it would've taken some getting used to at first but I would've offered you my support! I would've encouraged you to seek this relationship with your son how could I not? I grew up without my father and his leaving has haunted me most of my life, I've made stupid choices because of it so how could I not want William to know his father? But more importantly I would've supported you because he's your son and that means he's important to you! He's a part of you so I would've loved him just as I've loved you! How could I do anything but love him?" 

She was crying, the pain in her eyes terribly present and there was nothing he could do to stop it because he caused it. This extraordinary woman in front of him who has time and time has fought for him, fought him and fought besides him because she's always believed in him and what he was capable of even when he himself hadn't, just left him speechless again because he was awed at how big her heart was. Hearing her say she would've supported him and loved his son because he was a part of himself just makes him more assured of how stupid he's been this whole time. Of course Felicity would have never done anything to jeopardize his budding relationship with his son, she's been his rock time and time again why would this be any different?

"I'm sorry." He knows it's not enough, he owes her more. "I'm truly sorry for how poorly I've handled everything, that's my fault but please don't think for a second that I didn't mean it when I asked you to spend the rest of our lives together. I love you and I know that we can get through this-"

"That's just it, we can't. Sorry is not enough Oliver. You lied to my face, I asked you to share what was bothering you, I asked you to let me in but you chose not to. You instead lied to my face and decided to start keeping secrets. You didn't trust me to have your back, to be there for you. You've been lying for months! And even now I only know because your hand was forced! We're you ever planning on telling me?!"

"Of course I was going to tell you! I just ..."

"When?! Were you planning on telling me on the day of our wedding? Or when our first child was born? Just throw in a line like 'by the way our child has an older sibling' in somewhere? When Oliver? When would you have told me because any time after we got back from Central City and before you asked me to marry you would've been good ."

Her tears wouldn't stop and her pain kept breaking through in her voice and all he wanted to do was fix this whole mess but he didn't know how. He had hurt her before and somehow she had still taken a chance on him and he had let her down once more. He wished he had Barry's ability to time travel, he would change things. He would make better decisions and he would let her in fully so she could never doubt how real his love for her was. So that she could know that he wanted to build a family with her, that if he could have chosen a mother for all his children it would've been her and always her. Barry in his own way had tried to help him and allude to him telling Felicity the truth before it tore them apart and he foolishly thought he knew better and he could handle it all. The only thing he did was hurt the woman he loved and break her trust in him and them. 

"I didn't want to hurt you and I didn't know how to tell you."

"And this isn't hurting me right now?! You simply had to open your mouth and say the words Oliver. You had to make that choice. My whole life I've wanted to find a love like ours, or the love I thought we shared. I wanted someone who could make me smile and laugh and who would want me for who I was, not who I should or could be. I wanted someone to accept me and love me with my faults and whom I could love like that in return. All my life I've wanted a love like that but I never allowed myself to actually believe I would find it but then I met you. It wasn't easy especially with you pushing me away every time at first but after all those trials I thought I finally found a love like that with you. I believed your words of love and your smiles and the happiness I thought I provided you with... I lowered my walls for you and I trusted you and I believed you've cause that's what you do when you love someone. That's what it means to be in love and be loved back. I loved you unconditionally and you couldn't do the same for me."

His heart broke at her words and a sharp pain flowed through his body when she flinched and backed away when he tried to go near her. Seeing that he had hurt her to the point where she couldn't bare to have his touch on her person broke what little hope he still had. His own eyes felt heavy with the tears that fell from them, he felt the walls start closing in on him because he finally acknowledged that he could really lose her this time and that was never a reality he had prepared himself for. His mouth opened and he tried to start the words but they all felt stuck in his throat, nothing came out. He desperately searched his brain for words that could make her forgive him and grant him one last chance but for all the different languages he knew he might as well know none for he had never felt as much a mute as right then.

"Please." One word but it meant everything. It meant please forgive me, please give me one last chance, please believe me, please don't leave me, please don't hate me, please love me. One word, it didn't say enough nowhere close but still it was him trying. 

She had rarely seen him cry and when she had it usually involved someone dying or the equivalent, to see him so broken before her made her ache. It made her want to try, try to believe him, try to forgive him, try to work through it, try to still picture that life she had dreamed of for them since his proposal but it was all tainted now and it wasn't enough. The thought made her want to laugh but it was broken by her sobs.

"When you asked me to marry you... It was the happiest day of my life. I thought all my dreams, dreams I never thought would happen for me were becoming a reality. I couldn't wait to be your wife, a legally accepted one, I was so oh very happy. I wanted a family with you and to grow old and to never be alone because we'd always face everything together and everyone would be jealous of the love we shared and the happiness we lived with. It was the happiest day but yesterday that life was taken from me. All those dreams are tainted and broken now and I don't know how to go back to before. After everything we've been through to get here and be able to be together... I don't understand how you could throw it all away like it meant nothing!"

He shook his head denying her claim, his fingernails cutting into his skin as he fisted his hand tightly trying to stop his body from reaching for her once more. His voice was shaky even as he pushed the words out. "Your love means everything to me! Why can't you believe that?"

"Because I can't tell your truths from your lies anymore! I noticed something was off with you since we went to Central City to help Barry but I asked you and you denied it and when you asked me to marry you I actually laughed at my foolishness for thinking anything bad wrong when things couldn't be any more perfect right? You were lying to me and I sensed it but because it was you I believed you and it's not fair. You lied to me so easily and I let you because I never thought you could hurt me like you have. I deserve better than that. That's not something I should have to tell you, you should already know it. All I ever did was believe in you and love you and all you did was break me."

She wiped at her eyes and tried to get one last good look at him so she could burn it to memory as this could possibly be the very last time she would see him, definitely the last time she would see him in the home they shared. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do, seeing him this vulnerable, so shaken and lost and hurting and not being able to console him as she so desperately wanted to because although he broke her heart she still loves him and seeing him hurt, being the one hurting him wasn't easy. Not by a long-shot. She pulled on the sleeves of her jacket to keep from wrapping her arms around him and forced herself to move. Gently, slowly she took off the engagement ring and placed it on the coffee table, on top of the papers she had left signed already. The diamond on the ring glittered with the light from the fire and she fought back the urge to reach for it and place it back on her lonely naked finger, it's beauty mocked her and teased about what could have been, what should have been. 

She felt cold, naked in front of the ugliness that their relationship was ending in. She allowed herself one last look at a ring which would need a new owner, 'maybe the mother of his current child, they can be a family together' the voice in her head supplied and she tried not to let the bitterness at the real possibility rule her. 

"This was Thea's home before it was ours... I'm leaving it to you. It's not a place I can come back to. I've also returned the company to you. It was going to be a wedding present but now it's yours without the fuss. -"

"Please don't...-"

"I'm taking everything I want with me so the rest you can sell or donate or throw it away it doesn't matter. I'm giving you your company and your money back because I can't keep it, I don't want it... It's all part of a life I'm leaving behind...."

He was in front of her before he knew it, in her personal space begging her to look at him and reconsider, pleading for her to stay for always but it wasn't enough because that night as the fire died and the darkness settled in the loft he was alone with his broken heart. All his pleading and begging and promises couldn't stop her from leaving with her one suitcase and her own broken heart. He had gained his family's company and all his wealth back but he had lost his light, his heart, he'd lost the only woman he would ever love.

 

As she looked out the window thousands of feet in the air, sitting alone in her section, feeling more lost and lonely than ever she finally allowed herself to break down and mourn for all which almost was but never would be. 

 

They always say that things can change in an instance and that you should allow love in because it's better to have loved and lost than never loving at all but they never tell you how much you loose when you loose love and how hard it is to change into someone who can live knowing that those memories of love will haunt you forever and never be more than just dreams.


	2. Ready or Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's P.O.V.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had started this as a one shot but their story (at least the one in my head) isn't finaihed just yet. I know where it's going and it's probably nothing like it will play out on the show but I figured I might as well get it all out. All mistakes are mine, characters are borrowed.

Felicity found her thoughts drifting as she looked out the window of her new office. New not in the sense that she just moved in but new as in this was different than her previous office, in another city, in what almost felt like another life. She had fled the city she fought so long and so hard to save. The person she was there, all her sacrifices, all her struggles... They shaped her sure, she loved that city and she believed in it, she believed it could still be saved she just couldn't stay there. It almost felt ironic her hope for Star city, or Starling city as she would always know it, but yet she had lost hope in herself and the life she lived there. She knew her old friends didn't agree with her decision even if they were trying to be understanding about it. Still she knew that no matter the disappointment from herself and them, she didn't belong there anymore. At least not at the moment, she wanted to believe that she could one day find peace and figure out how to stop running but right now she needed space and time and a fresh start. A new start. 

 

She looked at the city from her window view and although there was plenty of darkness because Gotham was naturally dark she had also come to realise that there was beauty in darkness too. Truth was that Gotham with all it's darkness, ambiguity, shadows, and mystery reflected the state she found her soul, her life in currently.

This city had been her second choice and had she not accepted Walter's offer for a job at QC she would've worked at Wayne Enterprises as she does now. 

Sometimes when the hurt or the anger got too much she almost wished she had just started her journey here without ever stepping foot in Starling. Almost. Yet being honest with herself she knew that no matter how bad it hurt, how broken she felt, and the sadness that now seemed permanent in her life she could never bring herself to regret any of her time at Starling or with team Arrow. How could she when those experiences and relationships had opened her eyes to the world, taught her that she was more than she have credit to herself for, and after a lifetime of yearning to belong she had finally found her place amongst heroes. Her heroes. 

Heroes she had abandoned when her heart was shattered by their leader. She knew it was partly her fault for not confronting him when she knew he was lying but still she couldn't understand his decision. She didn't understand how after all they'd been through he still wouldn't or couldn't trust her. She had opened up her heart and bared her soul to him and still she fell short of what he needed or wanted it seemed for he hadn't let her in, hadn't trusted her and she knew not what else she could offer. What more did she have? She gave him her best, her friendship, her heart, her love, her soul, her all, and if that wasn't enough then what else could she offer? 

"Still here? Isn't it a bit late even for you?" Her boss and friend asked her. Bruce. She had briefly met him when she interviewed at the company, she had found him charming even if in passing only. Now she had had offers throughout the years from many huge corporations and big companies but until forced to move she hadn't needed to consider any. 

She was glad she chose this city, Bruce had been a kind employer, very considerate boss and CEO. She had quickly picked up the clues and discovered he was the batman, Gotham's own guardian. She had realised that she really missed helping others and making a difference by protecting those who couldn't protect themselves. After batman had come to her rescue she had approached him and just been honest about what she knew and offering her help. Luckily for her he had accepted her help but requested she started to train if only to better be able to defend herself if she ever got in a sticky situation. She enjoyed that, being able to protect herself and not be seen as a weakling or damsel in distress. She knew she'd never be like Sarah, or Laurel, or even Thea but she was better prepared to defend herself and maybe help someone else, that was new and she relished in her accomplishment. Bruce was a good boss turned friend. 

"I needed to finish a few reports and then I got lost in my thoughts." 

"Everything okay?" His concern was genuine and not just for polite conversation. 

"Yes, it's just my life has really changed in these past six months and sometimes my head has trouble catching up with it all." She offered him a small but honest smile. Her bright smiles, the smiles that were big and happy were a thing of the past and half smiles, small smiles were all she had left. 

"Well as your boss I can say that your presence here had definitely benefitted W.E. but as your friend you know I understand that these are huge changes and I'm here to listen if you ever need anyone." 

She knew, he was a good friend to her. One of the very few she had here. It wasn't that people hated her, it was just everyone was busy with their own lives and she made sure to keep most everyone at a distance. It helped her keeping people at arms length because if you didn't let them in then when they'd leave or they'd betray you they couldn't hurt you. A lesson life had taught her multiple times. 

"If you're done here I could use your help tonight." 

She grabbed her bag and coat and joined him at the door, her thoughts and her past could wait. Batman needed her help to protect his city and the innocents in it.   
\----------------------------

A few days later she was working, going over several projects that needed her attention when her cell phone went off. By it's ringtone she knew it was Diggle, the only one she had kept in contact with. 

"Hey Diggle, sorry I haven't called I've meant to but I got busy here at work."

"....."

"Diggle?"

"Felicity you have to come back, John was taken... I need your help to get him back.." Lyla. Lyla was on the phone, not john because he was in trouble and her friend needed her.

"I'm leaving now, I'll get there as soon as I can."

She wasn't ready. She wasn't even remotely close to being ready to go back, not by a long shot. It didn't matter though, John, her brother needed her and she would be damned if she let her fears and broken heart get in the way of helping getting him back safely. Ready or not she was out of time and she had to step up. Starling city here she comes.


End file.
